Post navigation

President Obama’s only chance for rebutting Republican claims that he’s responsible for a bad economy is to point to a positive trend. Voters respond to economic trends as much as they respond to absolute levels of economic activity. Under ordinary circumstances, January’s unemployment rate of 8.3% would be terrible. But compared to September’s 9.1%, it looks quite good. And the trend line – 9% in October, 8.6% in November, 8.5% in December, and now 8.3% – is enough to make Democrats gleeful.

The new 8.3% unemployment number is such a scam. As pointed out on Zero Hedge:

it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

How can the BLS just drop 1.2 million people from the labor market? In one month no less.

But the raw numbers, 130 million jobs in December, 128 million jobs in January, give or take a couple hundred thousand either side. But when the seasonal adjustments take place, there is a gain of 200, whatever they’re reporting, 33,000 jobs. Now, what’s happening is the labor force is shrinking. There are fewer jobs. Even the Drive-Bys, so excited, they can’t wait to report the good news, but even they are reporting that the labor force participation rate, number of jobs out there, is continuing to dwindle, and most of the jobs being created are low wage.

But none of that’s gonna matter. None of it’s gonna matter. I don’t want to be an “I told you so,” but way back last year, even recently toward the end of last year, this being an election year, I predicted. But you knew. You knew what was gonna happen when this year started. You knew that the statistics are that no president has ever been reelected when the unemployment rate’s over 8%. So guess what it’s gonna be by the time we get to Election Day? It’s just that simple.

[...] with an un-employment rate above 8%. Knowing this, our treasonous media has turned a blind eye to the BLS artificially shrinking the size of the labor market. This move drives down the unemployment rate, helping the current White House occupant in his [...]